Americana: No Thanks, Tovarishchi

For two years, residents of Vulcan (pop. 200), W. Va., pleaded with
state and federal officials for money to rebuild a 70-year-old bridge
across the Big Sandy River that had collapsed from old age. Finally, to
shame the bureaucrats into action, John Robinette, honorary mayor of
the isolated mountain town, melodramatically applied to the Soviet
Union for foreign aid.

Horrors! The stunt worked all too well. A Manhattan-based representative
of Moscow's Literaturnaya Gazeta hopped on a plane for Vulcan. A
Russian charity committee said it was willing to consider a donation to
help reopen the Big Sandy. Said Robinette, aghast at what...